Well, I finally did it. I've been growing my hair out for more than a year now. But today I grabbed some scissors and hacked most of it off, and then shaved off what was with some lamb shears. Then I put the hair, about a pound of it, in a piece of butcher paper and wrapped it up into a little package.
I took the package of hair out to the fire pit in the back yard, soaked it in WD40 and set it on fire.
I did the deed not just because I was tired of having my hair in my eyes all the time, or even simply because I was tired of looking like a hippy. The act also served as a sort of ritual, a psychological underlining of a determination to disconnect myself from the unnessecary burdens that have been accumulating upon me for the past 17 months.
The last time I cut my hair was in January of 2007, when I started the job search that eventually situated me in the terrible night-shift job at the local hospital cafeteria. I quit that job on May 1 of this year, after the mounting stupidity of the situation finally crossed the cost-benefits threshhold. It's no coincidence that I quit on May 1, international labor day. Though I consider myself a rational atheist, I still ritualize things.
Religion is false and foolish, but I'm sure there are psychological effects to ritual activity. A good ritual, designed and choreographed by human beings can add a touch of symbolism to a person's life, shooting a feeling of narrative into what would seem an otherwise haphazard existence, devoid of independent control.
I can't say for sure that rituals actuallly work this way, but I'm prone to hypothesize that when we make our own rituals, we help ourselves feel like heroes in our own story. Sometimes confidence can make all the difference.
5:13 PM 6/13/2007
-Zeno Izen
I took the package of hair out to the fire pit in the back yard, soaked it in WD40 and set it on fire.
I did the deed not just because I was tired of having my hair in my eyes all the time, or even simply because I was tired of looking like a hippy. The act also served as a sort of ritual, a psychological underlining of a determination to disconnect myself from the unnessecary burdens that have been accumulating upon me for the past 17 months.
The last time I cut my hair was in January of 2007, when I started the job search that eventually situated me in the terrible night-shift job at the local hospital cafeteria. I quit that job on May 1 of this year, after the mounting stupidity of the situation finally crossed the cost-benefits threshhold. It's no coincidence that I quit on May 1, international labor day. Though I consider myself a rational atheist, I still ritualize things.
Religion is false and foolish, but I'm sure there are psychological effects to ritual activity. A good ritual, designed and choreographed by human beings can add a touch of symbolism to a person's life, shooting a feeling of narrative into what would seem an otherwise haphazard existence, devoid of independent control.
I can't say for sure that rituals actuallly work this way, but I'm prone to hypothesize that when we make our own rituals, we help ourselves feel like heroes in our own story. Sometimes confidence can make all the difference.
5:13 PM 6/13/2007
-Zeno Izen
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